


'cause then you're not just history

by nevershootamockingbird



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-10 01:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15280863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevershootamockingbird/pseuds/nevershootamockingbird
Summary: There’s so much blood, seeping out into the soil, splashed over the stupid fucking clothes, still dripping slowly from parted lips. Beau tightens her grip on her staff, feels bile rise up in her throat as she comes to a stop, Mollymauk’s lifeless body at her feet.His eyes are still open.His eyes are still open, staring and unseeing, and Beau loses her fucking mind.





	'cause then you're not just history

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what to say, honestly. I'm still a little in shock over last night's episode. Here's what I imagine what might be the immediate aftermath. 
> 
> SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 26!!!!! If you have not watched last night's episode yet (ep. 26 premiered 7/12) and you are trying to avoid spoilers, this is not the fic you want to read. 
> 
> I'm sorry. This is my way of coping. Not particularly happy, but a hopeful ending, because I'm hopeful about how they're going to proceed and fix what's happened. I'm sad, but I am very pleased with how this turned out. I hope you enjoy!

She can’t stop staring. 

She listens as the carts get further away, waits until they’re maybe around a bend in the road before she forces her feet to start moving, one in front of the other, steady and slow. 

Keg is giving heaving breaths where she’s still sprawled over the ground, anxious gasps that ratchet Beau's own panic up, but she ignores the other woman as she keeps moving forward. 

“Wait-- Beau, no--” Nott hisses, voice shaking more than usual but Beau ignores the words, tunes them all out until it’s just the roaring of her blood in her ears. It’s easier if the only thing she has to listen to is the screaming in her brain. 

There’s so much blood. 

There’s so much blood, seeping out into the soil, splashed over the stupid fucking clothes, still dripping slowly from parted lips. Beau tightens her grip on her staff, feels bile rise up in her throat as she comes to a stop, Mollymauk’s lifeless body at her feet. 

His eyes are still open. 

His eyes are still open, staring and unseeing, and Beau loses her fucking mind. 

She doesn’t feel her staff splinter and crack when she grabs it tight with her other hand, doesn’t register tossing the pieces to the side, doesn’t realize when she drops to her knees next to the man. Her companion. Her-- her fucking friend. 

Beau grabs his shoulders and  _ shakes _ , just once, watches his body move like a ragdoll in her hands, his head lolling to the side so that his eyes are aimed up at her. Her mouth twists and she feels the hot sting of tears, panic blossoming in her lungs as she feels the air rush out of her in one horrific, embarrassing sob. 

He’d fucking laugh at her for crying over him like this. 

She does it anyway, even as she tries to straighten his stupid coat, that ridiculous shirt, smoothing her hands over the tears and the stains like she can make them disappear. She cries as she sheathes his swords at his sides, as she thinks about curling his fingers around his deck instead because she didn’t believe but she thinks he did, sometimes. She wipes at the blood on his face, flecks away the bit that’s dried at the corner of his mouth, and then there’s just that blank stare, and it looks wrong, so wrong, he shouldn’t look like this. 

Molly shouldn’t look empty. She never wanted that for him, not again. 

She scrubs a hand over her eyes, taking in a shuddering breath as she realizes that footsteps have started to approach behind her, shuffling and stumbling, two different gaits. 

“What do we do now?” Nott asks, quiet and strained, and Beau spares a glance over her shoulder, sees that the goblin is leading Caleb by the hand. The man is staring at Mollymauk with a distantly horrified look on his face, his mouth moving although no sounds are coming out; Beau turns back away, shrugging her shoulders as she does. 

“We need Caleb’s head back in it, get him out of that daze.” Her voice sounds like she’s been swallowing glass, and Nott lets out a distressed sound, murmuring something as Beau keeps looking at their fallen friend. She can’t hear Keg anymore, but she doesn’t think she cares all that much, now. 

He’s still staring at her. 

He’s still staring at her, and Beau is fucking furious, all of a sudden, feels her blood boil as she digs her nails into the bandages wound over her palms. Molly is staring but he isn’t there, he’s fucking  _ empty _ , now, just a shell and they can’t do anything, couldn’t do anything, even though they tried. 

She couldn’t stop it, even though she tried. She couldn’t save him. 

“Beauregard?” Caleb asks, and he doesn’t sound like he’s really here but fuck, at least he knows enough to know who she is. She bites the anger back, pushes it down and stores it for later, for when it’ll actually do her some fucking good. She rolls her shoulders back, reaching out with every intention of closing Molly’s gaze. 

She hesitates as she puts her hand over his eyes, and it feels wrong, suddenly, the thought of him never opening them again if she shuts them. Her stomach roils, bile rising in her throat again, but Beau swallows hard and pulls her hand away, relieved beyond measure to see that piercing red stare again. 

"We have to go," she says, rising slowly to her feet, ignoring the grinding and popping of her joints. Her pants don't feel right, a strange weight dragging them down, and when she glances down she realizes that it's blood,  _ his _ blood, soaking the fabric from her knees down. "Fuck."

"Where are we going?" Nott asks, trepidation heavy in her words, and Beau grinds her teeth together, balling her hands into fists. 

"I don't know!" She spins on her heel, feels a rush of guilt as Caleb starts violently, but Nott just stares, lined with sadness and understanding. Beau licks her lips, raises shaking hands to thread her fingers through her hair, tugging to try and regain her focus. "I don't, I don't know. We gotta find a cleric," Beau tells them, tugging at her roots again to feel the jolt in her scalp, her nerves, trying to ground and steady herself back down. 

"I'll fetch the horses, then." Nott squeezes Caleb's hand once before slipping away, ears flattening back against her head as she glances over at where Molly still lies in the pool of his blood. 

"He just wanted to protect us, help them. He just wanted to free them." Caleb's voice is distant, still, but his eyes are present; Beau waits for him to drag his gaze up to her cheek before she nods. 

"We're gonna bring him back, and then we'll get them back. We're gonna try our fucking best, Caleb." He almost laughs at her words, more a gust of air than anything, mirthless and bitter. Beau feels a brief moment horror swell in her veins, thick and heavy; she can suddenly see exactly who he was, once, molded and twisted by fucking Ikithon, hard and calculating and uncaring. 

"I don't know that it will be enough, Beauregard." Caleb shakes his head as he talks, fingers twitching, and Beau stiffens, clenches her jaw. "We seem to try an awful lot."

"We don't have another choice right now," she tells him, isn't sure if she wants him to hear the desperation tinging her words or not. 

"Yes, we do. But I much prefer this one." Caleb finally meets her gaze, and Beau feels relief wash over her, muscles loosening as she lets herself relax. She can hear the horses trodding closer, but she can also hear creaking armor; she manages to make the next few steps until she's just past Caleb, leaning against his back as she stares at the approaching figure.

"I'm sorry," Keg offers, and there's fire in her veins now, anger coursing through her. 

"Fuck that," Beau spits back, feels Caleb lean solidly against her as she does. Keg shakes her head, hands coming up before falling back to her side. 

"I didn't-- I didn't think this would happen, I don't--" she cuts herself off, swallows audibly and takes a shuddering breath. Beau waits, tips her head back against Caleb's shoulder, crossing her arms as she stares down at the dwarf. Keg exhales shakily, squaring her shoulders as she tries again, "It wasn't supposed to happen like this, I was supposed to be better. I'm sorry."

"Well that doesn't do us a fucking lot of good now, does is?" Keg flinches a little but just looks resigned, accepting, nods at Beau's words. Caleb's fingers curl loosely around her wrist, and the fight slips out of her again. They don't have time. She waits until Keg meets her eyes again, nods once as she says, "For what it's worth, thank you."

"Will you be coming with us?" Caleb asks, turning slowly to give Beau the opportunity to shift her weight off him. He doesn't let go of her wrist, fingers curling tighter, almost clinging; she accepts it gladly, wishes that she had the chance to grab at him in return, shoves the idea away as soon as she's had it. 

"I don't think that's a good idea. I have to fix this, and you have to fix him." Keg jerks her head past them, and Beau swallows hard, refuses to look around just yet. She can't. 

"You'll die if you go after them alone," she says instead, and Keg shrugs, looks up the road where the carts had disappeared.

"Maybe. But I have to try again." She rolls her shoulders back, cracking her knuckles as she twists back to face them. "Besides, I know the Run. I know who wants to see them dead as much as I do."

"Then take a horse. Just help up us get him up on one, first." Keg looks like there's more she wants to say, but instead she nods at Caleb's words and begins unwrapping the tapestry from her head. The early morning light catches the silver threading running through it, like something alive, and Beau is captivated for a moment, breath caught in her lungs as she hopes, almost prays desperately for some miracle. 

Nott lets out an awful choking nose, and the moment slips past; this is no place for miracles. When Beau looks over, her small friend is drinking heavily from her flask, eyes shut tight as she drops the horses' reins. Keg walks over, tossing the cloth over one of the horses' backs, tugging and straightening it to rights best she can. Beau feels frozen, can't move, unable to do anything but watch as the dwarf turns to start walking towards Mollymauk. Keg reaches down when she's close enough, hand resting over his eyes, and Beau thinks for a wild second that she's going to be utterly and violently sick. 

"Don't." The command is soft, but a command nonetheless, and Beau looks up at Caleb as he stares down Keg, lips pressed into a tight line. The other woman narrows her eyes, opening her mouth to speak, but Caleb cuts her off, repeats himself, "Don't. Please, don't. Leave them open."

Keg sighs heavily but acquiesces, removing her hand and shifting to start lifting the tiefling. Beau reluctantly pulls away from Caleb's grip, moving forward to help as best she can; together they manage to get him slung over one of the horses, on top of his tapestry. Beau is quick to scramble up behind him, placing a hand on his back. 

He's still warm. She feels another wave of tears rising, swallows hard and looks down at Keg. 

"Thank you," she manages, voice nearly a croak,and Keg clenches her jaw, nodding and reaching up to pat Beau's calf. 

"Good luck," she says, and then she turns to another horse, hauling herself up onto it and nodding at them all, making eye contact slowly. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more."

"Good luck to you as well," Caleb tells her, Nott murmuring assent, and then Keg is gone, urging her horse down the road. 

It's quiet, then. 

Caleb boosts Nott up onto their horse, climbs up in front of her and takes the reins. He looks over at Molly, and Beau watches tears well up in his eyes, roll down his cheeks; he doesn't make a fucking sound. 

"What now?" Nott asks quietly, sniffling and rubbing at her nose, her cheeks, fingers. Beau presses her palm more firmly to Molly's back, gather the reins in her other hand and licks her lips, swallows once, twice to wet her throat. 

"Now, we get him back. We get them all back," Beau says, ignoring the tears that start to drip down her face, off her chin. Nott hiccups around a sob and nods, twisting her fingers together before latching onto Caleb's coat, pressing her face against his back. Caleb looks over his shoulder down at her, lets out a shuddering sigh before looking over at Beau, meeting her gaze steadily. 

"Let's try," he says, and it sounds like a promise. Beau nods, rolls her shoulders and curls her fingers tightly into Molly's coat. "We're not going to leave, Beauregard. I promise, I'm not going anywhere."

"Me either!" Nott declares, voice muffled and wet, and Beau feels something finally loosen behind her ribcage, feels some of the terror slip away. Caleb's promise pings something on her radar, maybe, seems oddly decisive, almost a declaration half muttered to himself, but she's too exhausted to decipher. She has to trust him at his word, because if she doesn't, she thinks she'll go fucking mad. 

"Then you two are stuck with me," she tells them, and the corner of Caleb's mouth twitches, almost curls up, something in his eyes softening a little.

"Good." They both nudge their horses into starting, then, pace slow and steady. Beau keeps a tight hold on Molly, bracing his body as best she can, and she can almost hear him bemoaning the indignity of it, bitching about how his clothes and now his tapestry are going to be a fucking mess. She can almost hear him laughing at her, can almost feel his hands ghosting down her arms, can almost hear him chiding her for the guilt still clouding her mind.

She smiles, tears drying tight against her face, bares her teeth and looks up at the heavy clouds, still dark even with the growing daylight. Beau fights down a laugh, thinks of red eyes and too much blood, thinks of faces that she misses, thinks of a broken almost family. She keeps her words soft, just for one set of ears as she speaks:

"You'd better come back, you fucker. We've got hell to raise, and I'm starting with you." 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Again, I hope that you enjoyed it, too. 
> 
> I tried hard to keep them in character, but my brain is a bit scattered today. I'm just trying my best to process it all. I really do believe they're going to try their damned hardest to get him back. 
> 
> I know this is already not entirely accurate, since Ashly Burch is coming back (yay!!! I love Keg!!!) so Keg won't be leaving them like I had, but I finished this before I found out. It still feels right. 
> 
> Title is from "Choke" by OneRepublic, because it came on while I was righting and that line hit me like a ton of bricks.
> 
> Again, thank you so much for reading. I hope you're all doing okay. You can find me over on [tumblr](https://nevershootamockingbird.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/daleytwin1) if you feel like yelling with me about these lovely characters or anything else.


End file.
